Serial Vandal Meets the Renaissance
Five centuries survived, one afternoon nearly undid
Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
- Repair Cost
- Years of conservation
- Curator's Blood Pressure
- 99%
- Embarrassment Level
- 6/10
- Recovered?
- Stabilized
- Selfie Involved?
- No
In April 1988 a serial vandal Hans-Joachim Bolhmann hurled sulfuric acid at Albrecht Dürer's 'Mater Dolorosa', a central panel of the Seven Sorrows Polyptych, permanently damaging parts of the 500-year-old work.
Visitors to Munich's Alte Pinakothek witnessed every curator's nightmare when corrosive liquid struck one of the great panels of the German Renaissance. The acid ate into portions of the painting, and years of painstaking conservation followed simply to stabilise what remained.
Though much of the masterpiece was preserved, the attack stands among the most shocking assaults on a Renaissance painting in modern museum history. Masterpieces often survive wars, revolutions and centuries of neglect. Sometimes their gravest threat arrives carrying nothing more than a bottle.